


Life under the Observer Effect

by Annakovsky



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Comedy of Remarriage, Divorce, F/M, Remarriage, screwball comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-21
Updated: 2009-05-05
Packaged: 2017-10-09 12:31:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annakovsky/pseuds/Annakovsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A comedy of remarriage, Office-style.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. My, she was yar.

Ryan breaks up with Kelly on a Friday, in the Dunder Mifflin parking lot at 5:05 pm. He figures dumping someone is like firing someone – timing is key. This way she'll have the whole weekend to cool off before he has to see her again, minimizing drama for everyone involved. And for everyone uninvolved.

Which is why, at 5:05 the following Monday, he's so surprised to hear the door of the supply closet lock behind him.

Pam happens to already be in there, getting a stack of Xerox paper down off the top shelf. Her eyes widen as he looks at her, horrified.

"Um, hello?" Ryan says, grabbing at the door handle. It's locked, all right, and that door doesn't lock automatically.

"Listen up, Ryan Bailey Howard," Kelly's voice says from outside. "You can just stay in there until you've thought about what you've done."

"Kelly?" Ryan says. "Are you insane? Open this door right now."

"I am sick of you calling me crazy!" Kelly says. "Call me when you've figured something out and maybe I'll come let you out. Jerkwad." Her voice kind of gets softer towards the end of the sentence, like she's walking away.

"Kelly!" Ryan yells again, but she doesn't answer.

"Um, Kelly?" Pam calls. "I'm in here too!" But there's still no answer. Kelly must be out of earshot.

"Goddammit," Ryan says and tries again to open the door. No dice. "Do you have a credit card?" he asks Pam, who's setting the Xerox paper down on top of a stack of boxes and sitting down on top of it. She just looks at him and spreads her empty hands like, do I look like I brought my purse into the supply closet? "Right," Ryan mutters, and starts fumbling for his own wallet.

"Why don't you just call Kelly now?" Pam asks.

Ryan feels stupid. "Good idea," he says, and fumbles through his pockets.

Shit.

He looks through his pockets again. "Fuck," he says. "I left my phone on my desk. Can I borrow yours?"

Pam again shows him her empty hands. "All I have is Xerox paper," she says.

"God," Ryan says, and goes back to rattling at the door handle. "Kelly! This isn't funny!"

Pam joins in. "Toby?" she tries. "Michael?"

They yell and rattle the door for a good twenty minutes before they give up. What a day for everyone to go home at five. Ryan finally rubs at his forehead and leans back against the door, looking at Pam. She's still sitting on the Xerox paper, her chin in her hand.

"Sorry about this," Ryan says. He rubs the back of his neck with one hand. "She'll come let us out eventually. I hope."

"What did you do, anyway?" Pam asks.

"Dumped her," Ryan says. He gets out his wallet again to try the credit card thing. Not that he's ever picked a lock with a credit card before, but how hard could it be?

"So what else is new?" Pam says, but almost under her breath.

"I'm sorry, did you say something?" Ryan says, in such a way that it's clear he heard her. He slides a credit card out and puts his wallet down on one of the shelves, turning around to start fiddling with the lock, but there's hardly any space between the door and the doorjamb to even fit the card in.

Pam kind of laughs. "Well, did you do it like a jerk?" she asks.

He tries really carefully to slide the corner of the card into the space. It takes a second, but it finally does. Score. "Why, do I seem like I would?"

When he glances over his shoulder, Pam's looking at him with a gleam of secret amusement. "Yes," she says.

Pam's gotten so much more interesting since she called off her wedding two months ago. And since Halpert left so she isn't always helping him be annoying. She's got a little life to her, these days, a little spunk under the surface.

Ryan tries not to smile and turns back to the door. He very carefully starts to slide the credit card down towards the lock, feeling for the bolt. "I was very professional," he says.

"What?" Pam says. "Ryan Howard, did you do it at the office?"

"No," Ryan says. There's a pause as his credit card just comes down on top of the bolt, not sliding underneath it to pull it open at all. Shit. When he looks back over his shoulder, Pam's looking at him with her eyebrows raised. "Okay, so in the parking lot," he admits.

"Ouch," Pam says, making an exaggerated pained face.

He shakes his head at her, still trying not to smile. "At least I didn't call off my wedding two days before," he says. He wiggles his credit card again, but it's not doing anything. Though it's starting to feel like if he messes with it too much, it might break. He sighs and pulls it out of the lock, turning back around and leaning against the door.

"Whatever," Pam says. "I was nice when I broke up with Roy, at least."

"Oh, sure," Ryan says.

Pam raises her eyebrows at him in a challenging way. He makes a face back at her.

"Whatever," Pam says. "I hope you know that you, like, owe me a drink or something for getting me stuck in here."

Ryan sighs. "That seems fair," he says, and sits down on the floor facing her. "So," he says. "Do we make conversation or do we play a game?"

Ten minutes later, he's flicking a paper triangle through a goal Pam's making with her hands. He scores.

"I always wondered how you played this," Pam says, picking the triangle off her boob, where it had landed. Pam has nice breasts. He's always thought so. "When all the boys played it in seventh grade."

"I kicked ass at it in seventh grade," Ryan says, making his hands into goal posts.

"Oh, I bet," Pam says, that sardonic glint back in her eye. Kelly was never dryly sarcastic at him. It's kind of refreshing. She flicks the paper football and it somehow flies directly sideways, almost as far from the goal as it can get. Pam laughs.

"Yeah, I don't think you're one to cast aspersions, Pamela," Ryan says, reaching over to pick it up.

"Fine," Pam says. "You kicked ass. I believe you." She makes a goal with her hands again.

Ryan flicks, and misses. The corner of Pam's mouth twitches. "Shut up," Ryan says.

As Pam picks up the triangle for her turn, he says, "Why'd you call off your wedding, anyway?"

She keeps looking down at her hands, getting the paper football ready to flick for a little longer than necessary. "I don't know," she says. "Cold feet, I guess." She shoots and misses.

"Come on," Ryan says. "No cameras in here. Seriously."

Pam coughs a little and sets her hands up as a goal post, not looking at Ryan particularly. "Oh," she says, and shrugs. "Um. I don't know. Jim told me he was in love with me." It'd come off as really casual and like she didn't care much about it, except for how she's turning bright red.

"Oh," Ryan says, trying not to roll his eyes. He's sorry he asked – that retarded drama's been going on for quite awhile. He's surprised Halpert managed to sack up enough to do it. "Wait, is that why he transferred?"

Pam shrugs. Ryan flicks the paper football through the goal. "Ten-three," she says. Ryan watches her pick the triangle off the shelf where it landed. "Anyway," she says, and looks a little sad. "I realized I wasn't really in love with Roy anymore, so, that was that."

Ryan notices that she didn't exactly comment on how she feels about Jim, but he'd prefer not to know anyway, so it's just as well.

"That's rough," he offers.

Pam looks up, finally, and smiles at him. "Eh," she says. "Could be worse."

Ryan snorts. "Yeah," he says. "At least Roy didn't lock you in a closet."

"True," Pam says. She looks around at the shelves of office supplies stretching above them. Ryan starts to take off his tie. "What do you think?" she says. "Paper clip sculptures next?"

By the time Kelly comes back to let them out, at almost nine that same night, Ryan's pretty sure that he's a little in love with Pam Beesly. Which is very inconvenient.

**

Ryan asks Pam out two weeks later, while one camera's in Michael's office and the other's in the bathroom with Kelly.

Pam looks at him. "Ryan Howard," she says. "Kelly is in the ladies' room crying as we speak."

Ryan shrugs and looks at her. "So?" he says.

Pam tries not to smile. She picks up a stack of expense reports and taps them against the desk to even them out. "So," she says. "Don't be such a...," she pauses, trying to think of the right word.

"Douche?" Ryan offers.

"Exactly," Pam says. She's trying to look very stern, but her eyes are amused.

"I get that a lot," Ryan says. "So is that a no?"

"Um, no," Pam says.

"No, it's a yes? Or no, it's a no?"

Pam rolls her eyes at him. "Whatever," she says. "We can get dinner. But it's not a date."

"Sure," Ryan says, and smirks at her.

She insists it's really not, and pays for her own meal, and whatever, they have a good time. When he pulls the car up at her apartment building, he looks over at her with a cheerful fake smile. "Well, friend," he says, and holds out a hand to shake hers.

She rolls her eyes at him. He keeps holding his hand out until she finally shakes it, but shakes it like she's suspicious he's got some kind of nefarious plan to do something else. Or like he's Michael and might have a joy buzzer.

His nefarious plan is not to have a nefarious plan, though, and after a long moment she gets out of the car. And she looks disappointed, which is what he was counting on.

He feels smug and drives home and jerks off, and the next weekend when they go out, Pam's the one who kisses him, between the third and fourth swings on the St. Anthony Elementary School playground across from her apartment.

**

His sales call with Dwight is... something. They don't get back to the office until past seven, and he's so tired just picking his feet up seems like a lot of effort. Pam's still there, weirdly, alone in the semi-dark office except for a cameraman, sitting at her desk, wearing her coat, and talking on the phone.

Whatever, he's too tired to care. He gets his keys out of his desk.

"Ryan, are you okay?" Pam asks.

He has to think for a second. Is he? Well, no sale, but no broken bones, so he's going to call it a win. "Yeah," he says, starting to leave again. "Yeah."

Outside it's dark, only his car and Pam's still in the parking lot. It smells like fallen leaves and autumn, wood smoke somewhere in the distance, the night air still a little warm, pleasant. Indian summer. He unlocks his car door and then stands there with it open, trying to think what CD he wants to listen to on the way home. Something sort of mellow but triumphant? Leaving the driver's door open, he crawls into the backseat to look through his giant CD case, and ends up leaning against the car, flipping through the pages.

He's rejected like 30 things and is thinking maybe he should just give up and put, like, Coldplay in, when he hears heels on the pavement.

"Hey," Pam says, walking towards her own car.

Ryan sort of raises his eyebrows and nods hello at her. They've still only been out a couple of times, so it's casual, he's casual. Plus, he's too tired to make the effort to make sounds.

Pam stops walking halfway between his car and hers, keys in her hand. "What happened to you today, anyway?"

Ryan shakes his head. "I don't know. It was a long day." He flips a page of his CD case and wonders why he buys such crappy music. "Dwight took me to his beet farm."

Pam laughs. "Oh my God, you went to Schrute Farms?" she says. She sounds a little jealous, actually.

"Yeah, you want to see what Mose whittled me?" Ryan asks.

"Yes!" Pam says.

Ryan smiles and puts his CD case back down inside the car to root around inside his bag for the... statue thing. "You have such a weird relationship with Dwight," he says.

"I do not," Pam says.

Ryan finds the statue and holds it out to her. She laughs delightedly. "Oh my God," she says, taking it from him.

"You can have it, if you want," Ryan says.

"Oh," Pam says, all exaggerated politeness. "I couldn't take this from you."

"No, really," Ryan says. "It reminds me of you."

Pam starts laughing again. "Shut up," she says. She comes and leans against the car next to him.

"So why are you here so late?" Ryan asks.

"Oh," Pam says, turning the figurine between two fingers. "Um. Jim called, so I was talking to him."

Oh, right, Jim. Well, this relationship was fun while it lasted. "Ah," Ryan says, and puts his hands in his pockets.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Pam asks.

"Nothing," Ryan says. "Did you tell him you loooove him?"

Pam makes a sort of incredulous noise. "Shut up," she says.

"Did you tell him you just want to hold him, all night long?"

"Oh my God," Pam says, and hits him on the shoulder.

"Did you tell him he had you at hello?"

Pam grabs Ryan by the tie, turning so she's facing him. "Seriously," she says, pulling on it. "I'll strangle you with this." As she pulls, Ryan takes a step towards her, and suddenly they're standing really close. Pam looks at his mouth, and Ryan's heart picks up the tempo, beating hard.

"Did you tell him – " Ryan starts, talking quieter now, but she pulls him in by the tie and kisses him before he can finish. God, he likes her. He puts his hands on her hips, and she moves her arms around his shoulders. He can feel Mose's figurine press against his neck, its curves and angles scraping lightly against his skin. They kiss for a long time.

"No," Pam says, when they finally pull back. Her cheeks are flushed a little, prettily. "I didn't tell him any of that."

"Oh," Ryan says, trying not to smile.

"You want to go to Farley's this Friday?" Pam says. She steps back and starts straightening her clothes.

"Sure," Ryan says.

Pam hands him back Mose's figurine. "Good," she says. She reaches out a hand and wipes the corner of his mouth with her thumb. "You have a little lip gloss, right there," she says.

"I bet," he says.

She smiles to herself and finishes wiping it off, taking a few steps back. "Well, 'night."

He waves at her with the hand still holding the fertility sculpture, then tosses it into the backseat of his car. He still hasn't picked out a CD, but he decides he doesn't need one after all and drives home listening to the silence, to the buzzing in his ears, the radio turned off and the windows down.

**

For a couple months they just go out every once in awhile, casually, but then gradually they're going out every weekend. And then it's every weekend and some week days, and it's been that for like three months, and Pam still hasn't asked Ryan if they're exclusive. It's making him nervous, like maybe she's going out with other guys. Because most girls, for instance, Kelly Kapoor, ask him if they're exclusive within, like, days of the first time they make out.

If this is about Jim Halpert, he's going to be annoyed.

Jim Halpert, thank God, did not come back to Scranton when the Stamford branch merged with it – instead he quit, got another job somewhere. Pam hasn't really said anything about it, which Ryan was happy about at the time, but now he's beginning to wonder if maybe they should've talked about it.

Three days before Christmas, he and Pam are out at a bar with a bunch of Ryan's friends, mostly ones he doesn't even like. Pam's driving up to her mom's the next day for the holiday, so she isn't drinking much. Instead she's beating a very drunk Thomas Smitherman at pool, and Ryan's drinking gin and tonic, watching her, and listening to a very drunk Keith Noble talk about the stock market.

He watches the curve of her back as she sets up her shot, the line of her arm, and wonders why she hasn't said she wants him to be her boyfriend yet. They've been sleeping together for three months. He doesn't want to be a pussy about it, but Jesus.

"I mean, goddamn, right?" Keith says.

"Right," Ryan says, not having any idea what he's agreeing to.

Pam comes back over to the table, almost bouncing on her toes at having won the game. She sits down next to him, so close their legs touch.

"Hi there," she says, reaching out and taking a sip of his drink. She makes a face when she tastes the gin.

Ryan stretches his arm along the back of the booth and smiles at her. "Hi," he says. "You win?"

"It wasn't much of a contest," Pam says, nodding at Thomas, who's slumped against the bar, looking rumpled and out of it.

Ryan laughs.

"Well, I probably better get going," Pam says. "I want to leave early tomorrow." She puts her hand on Ryan's and laces their fingers together. "Walk me out?"

Ryan lets her pull him up, and they walk out of the bar holding hands. Keith makes a whip cracking noise with his mouth, and Ryan flips him off with his other hand.

Outside it's suddenly cold and quiet, snow still drifting down, their feet making crunching noises in the stillness.

"When do you come back, again?" Ryan asks.

"The 27th," Pam says, and then teases, "Why, will you miss me?"

"Nah," Ryan says. "Losing the old ball and chain?"

"Right, right," Pam says. "Big relief, I know. I wonder how many guys I can sleep with in the next five days?"

"Ha, ha," Ryan says. Pam swings their hands, and reaches in her purse for her keys. "Hey," he says as they walk up to her car. "So, uh...." He can't quite think how to phrase it.

"Yeah?" Pam says.

"We're exclusive, right?" he says.

"Hmm?" Pam says. She's still rifling through her purse looking for her keys.

"I mean, uh, we're not dating other people," Ryan says. "Right?"

Pam looks up and makes a hilarious face at him, like she's amused and surprised and kind of making fun of him, all at once. "Ryan Howard," she says. "Do you want to be my boooooyfriend?" She says 'boyfriend' like she's a seventh grader.

"Shut up," Ryan says.

She goes back to looking for her keys. "If I were a set of keys, where would I be hiding? This purse is not that big."

Ryan looks at her for a second, but she doesn't say whether they're dating or not, and finally he shakes his head in exasperation. "God, you are such a bitch."

She smiles to herself and keeps looking for her keys. "Yeah, Ryan, we're exclusive. I mean, you don't have to be such a girl about it." She looks up and grins at him.

He rolls his eyes at her and takes the purse out of her hands. "Give me that," he says, rummages around, and finds her keys in about two seconds, underneath her cell phone.

"Thanks, boyfriend," she says, taking her keys out of his hand.

"I hate you," he says. He puts his hands in his pockets.

"Apparently," Pam says, unlocking the car, "you love me."

"Shut," Ryan says. "Up."

Pam just smiles at him. He has the feeling he's smiling back like an idiot, but he can't seem to stop.

"High five?" Pam says. She's got snow in her hair, melting in droplets that catch the streetlights. He high fives her. And then kisses her.

"Call me when you get there?" Ryan says.

"Yeah," she says as she climbs into the car. He stands in the parking lot and watches her pull away.


	2. The course of true love gathers no moss.

"So you know that corporate job?" Ryan says during a commercial. Pam's over at his place, lying across his couch with her head in his lap, reading the first His Dark Materials book while Ryan watches ESPN.

"I may have heard something about that," Pam says, not looking up from her book. "Once or twice. A minute. All day."

Ryan laughs. "Yeah. Well. I kind of have an interview for it next week."

Pam drops her book to her stomach and tilts her head back to look at him. Her features look strange upside down, her mouth bowed in an inverse curve. "Really?"

Ryan half shrugs. "I probably won't get it."

"That's great, though," Pam says. "That's, like...." She trails off.

"What?"

Pam kind of shakes her head and smiles. "It's like you know what you want and you're trying to get it," she says. "I'm not used to people like that."

Ryan taps her on her forehead. "You're used to me, though, right?" he says. She came to his business school graduation the week before, sat with his family. His mom really likes her, not that that's surprising. Pam's the kind of girl moms like. The surprising thing is that she's also a girl that he likes. That he's kind of embarrassingly crazy about.

"Unfortunately," Pam says. He taps her forehead again, and she reaches up to grab his finger before he can get it away. "That's awesome, Ryan," she says. "I'm proud of you." She pulls his finger down to kiss it before letting go again. He get a little shiver from it, which is kind of ridiculous when he's been sleeping with her for seven months. "Plus," Pam says. "Michael's going to be devastated."

Ryan laughs. A commercial for Empire Carpets comes on, that jingle that gets stuck in your head. "Um, if I did get the job, though," Ryan says. Pam looks at him again, still upside down. "It'd mean moving to New York."

The corners of Pam's mouth move, and with her upside-down it takes him a second to realize it's a frown. "Right," Pam says slowly.

"Not that I'll get it," Ryan says quickly. "But if I do, you should come." He tries to sound casual, like he hasn't just asked her to possibly move in with him.

"Oh," Pam says, her mouth relaxing. "Well, maybe I will." She's matching his tone casual for casual. They're being breezy. Blase. Cavalier.

"You could do that graphic design internship you keep talking about."

"Well, maybe I could."

"Well, okay then," Ryan says.

Pam shakes her head and goes back to her book, smiling to herself. Ryan watches the rest of SportsCenter with his hand in her hair and his heart pounding, trying not to grin.

**

He gets the job, and she gets the internship, and all of a sudden they're New Yorkers with careers, instead of Scranton kids with dead-end jobs. It's weird.

Pam's internship is unpaid, so even with Ryan's new bump up the pay scale, they can only afford a tiny one-bedroom walkup way uptown. It's pretty okay, though, considering. They leave most of their furniture in Ryan's parents' basement in Scranton, rent a U-Haul for the rest, and drive up on a scorching hot Friday at the end of June.

Ryan's coming up the stairs to the third floor with a heavy box and Pam's coming down to get more stuff out of the truck, wearing a tank top and shorts, her sunglasses on top of her head. She pokes a finger at the sweat marks on Ryan's shirt, under his arms. "That's attractive," she says.

"I know you want to jump me," Ryan says. He still kind of can't believe she's moving in with him. That he's moving in with her. Life goes in funny directions.

"I'll try to restrain myself," Pam says, and slips past him.

The apartment itself is sweltering, even with all the windows open, and there's noise drifting up from the street, traffic and honking and someone calling to someone else in Spanish. Doesn't sound much like Scranton, but that feels pretty good.

He sets the box down in the kitchen – well, it's maybe more of a nook than a kitchen, but still – and goes to splash some water on his face. Pam's somehow managed to unpack just the important stuff already, so there's some liquid soap by the sink, and a hand towel hanging off a drawer handle. It's the kind of touch you only get when a girl lives in a place. The hand towel has Rosie the Riveter on it.

They carry boxes all afternoon, until finally at five, Ryan brings the last one up and puts it down in the living room as Pam does a drum roll.

"Phew," Ryan says, collapsing down on the couch. There's barely any room to sit, with boxes all over it, but he manages to make a space. Pam's kneeling down by another box, pulling out pots and pans. "Oh, geez, don't do that," he says. "Let's get dinner at that Mexican place down the street or something."

"Okay," Pam says immediately. She's all flushed and sweaty, her hair sticking to her forehead and her face red, and he thinks she looks really beautiful. She sits back on her heels. "Do you want me to take the truck back?"

"Nah," he says. "I'll do it. You can take a shower or something."

"Oh my God, yes, please," Pam says.

After he turns in the truck, he takes the subway back from the U-Haul place. It smells like pee, and he stands the whole way, swaying with the movement of the train, his sweat drying slowly. When he gets up to their apartment, he can hear music through the door. The Beatles, one of their older albums, bright and sunny.

Pam's assembled a bookshelf and is putting books on it, humming along and sort of swaying to the music. She obviously just got out of the shower – the whole place smells like girl's shampoo, flowery and sweet, and her hair's still wet, just dried enough so that it's not dripping onto the white dress she's changed into.

"Honey," Ryan says. "I'm home."

She makes a face at him and turns down the music. "Are you going to do that for the next two months? Because if so, I think I should have at least been warned in advance."

Ryan shrugs and says, "I just want you to know I'm home." He starts to put his hands on her waist to pull her hips up against his – it's a really nice dress, he wants to take it right off her – but she wrinkles her nose and pulls away.

"Go take a shower, stinky," she says, smiling. "I'm hungry."

"You're just mean," Ryan says, but he goes to take a shower.

Once he's clean and dressed, they wander down the street – their street, their neighborhood – to find a place to grab dinner. Pam looks summery and pretty, and Ryan feels grown-up and sophisticated, living in Manhattan, about to start a great new job on the fast track, grabbing a bite to eat with his pretty girlfriend. It's like everything in his life turned around at once, and he can live with that.

They end up at the Mexican place, sitting at a table outside along the sidewalk, the sun setting slowly behind the buildings. They get a pitcher of sangria and talk about how to arrange the apartment, where the couch should go.

"What are you smiling at?" Pam says, at a lull in the conversation.

"Hmm?" Ryan says. "I don't know. It's just... this is all pretty good, huh?"

"Oh, yeah," Pam says. "These are great enchiladas."

Ryan didn't mean the food, but he doesn't correct her. They walk back home holding hands, and he thinks how great it is to be able to walk to someplace to eat, and how great it is to be going home. With her.

Ryan unlocks the apartment door, and when Pam shuts it behind her and throws the deadbolt, he pushes her up against it with his hips, moving her hair to the side so he can kiss her neck. "Been waiting to do this all day," he says into her skin, and she laughs.

"Horndog," she murmurs. He tickles her and she jerks away. "Hey!" she says, but then kisses him, and they stumble back towards the bedroom, almost tripping over some boxes. They're both giggling, and Ryan bangs his shin pretty hard against an empty drawer, leaning against its bureau.

"Fuuuuck," he says, as the pain hits him, and he jumps a little bit, reaches down to rub it. "This sex better be pretty great," he says when Pam laughs.

"Oh please," Pam says. "When is it not?" She's sitting down on the bed now – it looks like she put sheets on it while he was out returning the truck. Their bedroom's so small that the double bed has to be pushed up against the wall, and there's so many boxes you can hardly see the floor.

He jumps her, rolling until they're both fully on the bed, and starts hiking up her dress, running his hands up her thigh. The fabric of the dress looks really white against her tan, and he's half on top of her, kissing her chin while he traces circles on her skin with his thumb. Pam makes a little appreciative noise and starts pulling off his shirt.

It was still dusk when they started making out, but somewhere in the meantime the sun sets, and by the time they've both got all their clothes off, it's full dark outside, the only light in the room from the streetlights coming through the window. Pam looks perfect in the dimness, her skin pearly, and she pushes Ryan onto his back, her hands against his chest.

"So bossy," Ryan says softly as she straddles his hips.

"Shut up, douchebag," she says, leaning down to kiss him.

"Poophead," he says. He runs his hands up her arms, and thinks he's happy.

**

The thing he can't get over about his new job is how people actually listen to his ideas. And how he actually has a lot of things to do that aren't cold calling or getting Michael coffee. It means he works late a lot, and is maybe on his blackberry a lot, but he doesn't even mind it. Pam's pretty busy with her internship, too, and she's doing really well at it. It finishes up in December, so towards the end of November she starts to interview for permanent jobs.

The first weekend in December, there's a major snowstorm, so Ryan doesn't have anywhere to be. He wakes up after 11 on Sunday, and when he stumbles out of the bedroom in just his pajama bottoms, out of habit holding his blackberry in one hand, he smells bacon.

Pam's in the kitchen making french toast, still in her pajamas too. Outside the window, everything's covered in snow, and there's more coming down hard.

"Morning, slug," she says.

"Shut up," he says. He has emails from Hunter and Dan from the Buffalo branch, and he sits down at the table to start to answer them.

"It's Sunday morning in the middle of a blizzard," Pam says. "Cut that out."

Ryan looks up, about to be annoyed, but she's got robots on her pajama pants and her hair is all mussed, so he smiles instead and puts the blackberry down. "Okay, okay," he says. She moves a second piece of french toast onto her plate and turns off the burner.

"There's more batter if you want any," she says, pouring syrup.

"Thanks," he says, and gets up to fry some bread, scratching at his chest.

Pam sits down at the table and takes a big bite of breakfast. "Oh hey," she says, her mouth still a little full. "You know that interview I had with that non-profit?"

"Yeah?" Ryan asks, putting a soaked piece of bread in the frying pan.

"They offered me a job," Pam says.

"Really?" Ryan says. It was a really good job; she wasn't expecting to get it. "That's awesome. Is it a better offer than Dunder Mifflin gave you?"

"Sort of," Pam says. She sounds a little weird about it, and when he looks over at her, she's regarding the piece of bacon in her hand seriously. "It's, uh, at their branch in Chicago."

Ryan works really hard to keep his face neutral, but he feels like the bottom is falling out of his stomach. "Oh," he manages.

"Yeah, so," Pam says, and looks at him. "I guess I have a decision to make."

"Right," he says. He finally remembers he has to flip his french toast, and when he does it's all burned on the back. Fuck.

He leans back against the counter, watching Pam take another bite of french toast. He imagines her moving to Chicago, them trying to date long-distance, the inevitable messy breakup. And then a Pamless life stretching out in front of him, dull and empty and uninteresting. Him alone in New York City, going out to get sandwiches at 2 am 'cause he doesn't have anything better to do, only working, all the time. His most significant relationship being with Hunter.

"Well," he says. "I want you to stay. If that makes a difference."

Pam looks at him and nods slowly. "It does," she says. But she doesn't say she'll stay.

It takes her two weeks to make the decision. Ryan helps her talk through the pros and cons, the salary differences versus cost of living, the potential for advancement. He feels like he can't pressure her too much to take the Dunder Mifflin job, since it has to be her decision, but holy crap. He thinks he might be getting an ulcer over it, his stomach's churned up so much.

He's talking to Marshall over in legal about it, and Marshall says, "Dude, it sounds like you want to marry her, is what it sounds like."

He does, too, that's the thing. "I don't even know who I am anymore," Ryan says.

Marshall laughs and says, "I can tell you a good place to get a ring."

A week before Christmas, Pam tells him she's decided to stay in New York. "Oh, thank God," Ryan says.

Pam smiles to herself, and kisses him. "That's what I thought you'd say," she says.

"That obvious?" Ryan says.

"I can read you like a book."

He buys a ring with Marshall's help and carries it around with him for two weeks, not knowing the best way to propose and hoping a moment occurs to him. Roy proposed to her at a minor league baseball game, on the Jumbotron, and Pam was not a fan. Ryan keeps trying to think of a better way to do it, but all he comes up with is a long list of terrible, cliched ways to propose. The ring in a champagne glass. At the top of the Empire State Building.

For New Year's Eve, Pam wants to do the whole Times Square thing. Ryan groans. "We live here now, Pam, we don't have to do that tourist bullshit."

"You're such a snob," Pam says.

"You're such a plebe."

"Pleeeaaase can we go to Times Square?" Pam says. "I'll be your best friend."

"You're already my best friend," Ryan says, and rolls his eyes. "Oh, fine."

They actually make it all the way until 10 pm before Pam gets sick of standing outside with a bunch of strangers. It's cold, and crowded, and boring, and the dudes next to them are from Nebraska and way overexcited.

"Okay, you win," Pam says.

"Yes," Ryan says, his hands shoved into his peacoat against the cold. "We're going to Gray's Papaya. Get out of my way." That last part was to the Nebraskans. Ryan reaches behind him for Pam's hand, and they plow through the crowd.

Once they have their hotdogs and are eating like they haven't had anything since lunch – which they haven't, fuck you, Times Square – Pam says, her mouth full, "Celebrating 2008 with hotdogs."

"Right?" Ryan says.

"Yeah, it is better," Pam says.

"It's going to be a good year," Ryan says. He can feel the ring in his pocket, and his hands get a little sweaty.

After they get done eating, they just wander for a little bit, looking at the Christmas lights still up, passing tourists and groups of drunk people. They're headed down 36th Street towards their subway stop when Pam glances at her watch. "11:59," she says.

Faintly in the distance, Ryan hears some people yelling a countdown. "Ten," he hears, and he fumbles for the ring in his pocket, stopping in front of a random brownstone on the mostly empty street. This is the moment, he thinks. He can feel it.

"What?" Pam says, stopping a few steps ahead of him. Six, he hears them yelling.

He should go down on one knee, but he thinks that he'd feel like an idiot and so would Pam, so he just flips the box open and holds it out to her. Three, he hears. Pam's eyes widen. Two, people count. One.

Somewhere in the distance, Times Square goes nuts, the yelling echoing distantly. The street where they're standing still seems quiet, though.

Pam's still looking at him like she might start crying. Ryan shrugs a little bit. Somehow he suddenly feels like it isn't much to offer. The ring. Him. Whatever. "Marry me?" he says.

There's a horrible pause, and it hits him that she might say no. He hadn't actually really considered that as a possibility, for some reason, but – "Yeah," she says, and there are tears in her eyes. "Yes."

Best New Year's of his life, no question.


	3. Ah, that's the old redhead. No bitterness, no recrimination, just a good swift left to the jaw.

_Three years, six months, and sixteen days later..._

The website is having some major problems, and Ryan's not happy with the new interface. What does he have to do to get something to go right around here? Ryan pushes the intercom button. "Hunter?" he says. "Get the webmaster on the phone – what's his name again?"

"Er, Stephanie?" Hunter says over the speaker. "But first – "

Ryan interrupts him. "Right, her name, whatever. And could you try calling the caterers again? I swear, if they mess up the lunches one more time – Harrison's vegetarian, we keep telling them, but – "

"Um, sure, but – " Hunter interrupts.

"I wasn't finished," Ryan says. "I – " Someone clears their throat from inside his office door and he looks up. It's Pam. Holy crap.

"Your ex-wife is here," Hunter finishes weakly, into the silence. Pam smiles tightly at Ryan. She looks good, even though she's wearing something sort of muted and pastel. He hasn't seen her since the divorce went through.

"Er, thanks," Ryan thinks he says vaguely, fumbling at the button to close the connection. "Hi, Pam," he says. His voice sounds a little strange. "You're back."

"I was kind of worried this would be awkward," Pam says, sitting down in one of the chairs across from his desk. "Really glad to see I was wrong about that."

"Don't sarcasm at me," Ryan says, immediately feeling more like himself. Apparently he just needed a bracing dose of good old fashioned hostility to perk him up. God, it's good to see her.

"Still tormenting Hunter, huh?" Pam says.

"Well, he asks for it," Ryan says. He's kidding. Mostly. "How was Scranton?" After the divorce was finalized, Pam took some time off to visit her family, telecommuting for a few months. Mostly her family was her parents, who had moved back to Scranton shortly after Pam and Ryan had gotten engaged. Ryan suspects Pam's jaunting off to telecommute was because she wanted some space from him. He suspects this mostly because she flat out told him so.

"It was fine," Pam says. "Listen, Ryan, I came here to tell you that... um, I'm tendering my resignation."

She can't be serious. That's not – where is she going to go? "What?" Ryan says. "You can't do that."

Pam raises her eyebrows. "Why not?"

Ryan flounders for a second, trying to think of a reason that's not that if she quits, he won't get to see her anymore. "I mean, what about Dunder Mifflin?"

Pam blinks twice, and looks faintly amused. "I'm sorry, are you trying to call upon my loyalty to _Dunder Mifflin_ to keep me here?"

"Shut up," Ryan says. "What, did you get a better offer?"

"Uh, you could say that," Pam says. She gets up and wanders over to the bookshelf. The framed photo on the top shelf is their wedding picture, them under the arch in her parents' backyard, and she picks it up to look at it critically. "Nice hair," she says.

"You were the one who told me to get that haircut," Ryan says.

"I know," Pam says, and smiles. As she puts the picture back on the shelf, something on her left hand flashes.

Oh God. He might be sick. He puts a hand to his forehead and presses to try to keep back the headache he feels rushing on.

"What is _that_?" he chokes out.

Pam looks confused. He points at the ring on her fourth finger. It's small, but definitely, definitely there.

"Oh," she says. She at least has the grace to look a little chagrined. "Uh, that's the other thing I came here to tell you."

"You're engaged?" Ryan says. "We've only been divorced four months!"

"I know," Pam says. "I'm sorry."

"Oh my God," Ryan says, pressing harder on his forehead. "How on earth do you meet somebody, fall in love, and get engaged in four months?"

"Well, that's the third thing I came here to tell you," Pam says. Oh, God, a third thing. And she sounds tentative, kind of the way she used to talk when she was the receptionist at Dunder Mifflin Scranton, before they ever got together. "It's, um – well, I'm engaged to Jim Halpert, actually."

He really is going to throw up. He starts gesturing at her.

"What?" she says.

"Bring me the trashcan," Ryan gets out.

Pam looks alarmed and moves to pick it up. "Why?" she says.

"Because I'm going to puke," Ryan says.

Pam stops and lets out an annoyed sigh. "That's not funny."

"I'm serious," Ryan says. He closes his eyes and tries to breathe through his nose.

"You are not serious, and it's none of your business, anyway," Pam says. "I was just telling you to, I don't know, be nice."

"Nice?" Ryan says. "Jesus Christ. What would you have done if you were trying to be mean?"

"Well, I thought you should hear it from me before the wedding this weekend," Pam says.

"This _weekend_?!" Ryan says. What the fuck. What. The. Fuck.

"Yeah, sorry," Pam says. She half-opens the door to get to the water cooler outside his office, and brings him back a cup of water.

"Are you pregnant or something?" Ryan asks, taking the paper cone out of Pam's hand.

"Ryan!" Pam says.

"What?" he says, taking a sip. "Sorry, did I impugn your honor as a lady?"

"God," Pam says. "No, I'm not pregnant."

Well, that's a relief, anyway. Ryan drinks his water and tries to calm down.

"I just, uh, ran into Jim while I was in Scranton," she says. "We reconnected."

Ryan finishes the last of the water. "That's such bullshit," he says. "How can you possibly marry Jim Halpert in 2011?"

Pam sits down on the arm of one of the chairs. "Well," she says. "I don't know. I think maybe I've always been in love with him."

Oh God. "You have not," Ryan says. "Knock it off."

"How would you know?" Pam says, getting sort of mad and downright again, losing the calm, tentative voice. Thank God. Now she at least sounds like herself.

"Well, first of all," Ryan says. "You were in love with me for five years, not dickwad Jim Halpert. And second of all, if you were always in love with him, how come you didn't call him after he said he was in love with you, before we ever hooked up?" Which, he might add, is a very good question.

Pam looks a little unsure. "Well, I was going to," she says. "But then you...."

"Seduced you with my irresistible charm?"

"Ha, ha," she says.

"That's right, I didn't," Ryan says. "You were the one who kissed me first, remember?"

"Oh please," Pam says. "You were asking for it."

They're talking like they're mad at each other, but when she says that – which is absolutely true – he laughs, and once he laughs, she smiles, and the whole thing is sort of friendly, the easy familiarity of bickering like this. Suddenly he's looking at her and remembering the first time they slept together, how fun it was, how much they'd laughed.

"Stop it," Pam says.

"What?" Ryan says.

"Looking at me like that, you manipulative dorkwad. You know what you're doing."

"I'm not doing anything," Ryan says.

Pam rolls her eyes.

"Don't marry Jim Halpert," Ryan says. "It's been like a million years. You don't even know him anymore."

Pam just looks at him like she feels sorry for him. Ugh, it's agonizing, that pitying look, and ridiculous, because he's dead-on right about Jim. A lot changes in five years – Pam, for instance. She's got a career and a spine, now, and how can Jim Halpert deal with that? He was a pussy to begin with, and Ryan imagines he has stayed a pussy, and Pam deserves better than that.

"Well," Pam says, standing up and looking at her watch. "I have to go. I just thought I should tell you."

He can't think of anything to say that'll keep her from leaving, so instead, after the door to his office closes behind her, he puts his head down on his desk and wonders what Hunter would do if he hyperventilated. Probably very calmly give him a brown paper bag, and then tell him his messages while he breathed into it. It's like someone's taken his worst nightmares and made them into reality, and he really hopes this doesn't mean there are also giant spiders crawling up the side of the building to his office window. Though at least the spiders would put him out of his misery and he wouldn't have to see his wife marry Jim fucking Halpert.

He always worried that Jim would be why he and Pam would break up. So it was almost a relief that it didn't seem to be the reason for the divorce... or he hadn't thought it was. But, well, now he doesn't know. Because here's the thing: the documentary had finished filming right after Ryan and Pam's wedding, and the episodes had started airing six months later. It was a long running documentary, airing for over a year, and when Pam and Ryan watched it together, they laughed about how much the documentary clearly wanted Jim and Pam to get together. There were, like, articles in TV Guide about how Ryan was the devil, stealing Pam away like that. He and Pam had clipped them out, even, made a little scrapbook about how much America hated their wedding. Ryan still had it somewhere.

So they laughed about it, but the thing was, it was all airing right about the time Dunder Mifflin was doing so badly they were looking at shutting another branch down, and Ryan was routinely working sixteen hour days, sometimes getting home after Pam had gone to bed and leaving before she got up. And he knew she hated it – they'd have huge fights about how she never saw him, and how even when she did see him, he was always on his blackberry – but work was really, really important. Or it seemed like it was at the time. So Pam was home by herself a lot, angry at the husband she didn't see, watching a show basically about how much Jim Halpert was in love with her.

No wonder he came home from work one day and she was gone. And the day after that, she was still gone, and the next day, and the next. He still hasn't gotten used to it, either, so the apartment still seems really dark and empty all the time. It means he works later than he needs to, or goes out and gets plastered, and it just – it sucks. The only way he's been surviving is his apparently retarded conviction that he and Pam would get back together. And now it's over, there's nothing he can do. God, it sucks, it sucks.

Ryan sits back up and tries to get hold of himself. Nothing he can do? What is he, Jim Halpert? There probably is nothing he can do, but he's at least got to try to get Pam back before she marries that loser and ruins her life. His life. Whichever. Both. He just needs a good excuse to go down and break up the wedding.

Thinking about the documentary and how it may have ruined his life leads to the germ of an idea. He pushes the intercom button again. "Hunter?" he says. "Get me the documentary producers on the phone. Greg, if you can."

"Why?" Hunter says.

"You'll see," Ryan says.

**

Ryan pitches it to Greg as a reunion special, and once Greg finds out that Jim and Pam are getting married, it sure doesn't take much convincing to get him on board. Ryan's only caveat is that Greg not tell Jim and Pam that it was Ryan's idea to start with, which Greg agrees to pretty fast. He'd probably rather have people think it was his idea anyway.

Greg calls back the next day to tell Ryan that the project is go, and he seems pretty excited. "Boy," Greg says. "A reunion special. Like an epilogue. Jim and Pam together, after all that."

God, everyone wants Jim and Pam together but him. Ryan pinches the bridge of his nose. "Right," he says. "Very exciting for you."

Ryan decides it'll be a good time to combine winning Pam back with his semi-annual visit to the Scranton branch, so he takes Hunter and drives down on the Thursday before the wedding. He figures he might need Hunter for wedding-breaking-up related errands. Or something. Anyway, what can it hurt?

After a headache-inducing meeting at Scranton, where Michael Scott has inexplicably hung on to his job as regional manager, Ryan and Hunter head over to Pam's parents' house. They park on the side of the road, since the Beesly driveway is full of cars, one of them Greg's, another a florist's truck. Pam and Jim are getting married in the backyard, just like Pam and Ryan did, which Ryan thinks is a lot like adding insult to injury.

"Come on," Ryan says to Hunter, as they get out of the car. "They're probably around the back." He puts on his most confident walk and a casual expression, bracing himself as he turns the corner to see the yard set up almost the exact same way as it was for his own wedding. Worst déjà vu ever. Pam and her mom are standing in the middle of the aisle, talking to someone he doesn't know and pointing at the arch. The florist, he assumes. They seem to just be finishing up – the florist makes some notes and then heads back towards the driveway. Randall's filming everything from across the yard.

As Ryan walks towards Pam and her mom, Pam glances in his direction, then does a double take. She sighs. "Hey there," Ryan calls, smiling in a friendly way. Pam's mother smiles back. Pam just looks mildly annoyed.

"What are you doing here?" Pam says.

"You didn't think I'd miss your wedding, did you?" Ryan says. He turns to Pam's mom and kisses her on the cheek. "Hi, Mom."

"Oh, hello, Ryan," Pam's mom says. She looks a little uncertain how to react, glancing back and forth between him and Pam.

"I did, actually," Pam says. Ryan puts his hands in his pockets and looks at her like he can't think why she would've thought so. "You aren't invited," she says.

"Come on, Pam," he says. "I'm here for the reunion special, give me a break. I even took time off work."

"Alert the media," Pam mutters. "Hell has frozen over." Then she looks pointedly at Hunter. "You took time off, but brought your assistant?"

Hunter lifts one hand in a little wave. "Hi, Pam," he says.

"Well, I didn't give _him_ the day off," Ryan says. "Anyway, I went over to the Scranton branch this morning."

Pam nods. "Yeah, that sounds more like you."

Ryan gives her a sharp look, and has to force himself to relax and not take the bait. She's not wrong about him working too much, after all. Instead he looks around at the yard. "Nice arrangement you have here," he says. "It's so natural, almost like you've set it up this way before."

"Ryan Howard," Pam starts, and he can hear that she's about to build up a good head of steam when she sees something past his shoulder and stops, relaxing. Suddenly she looks kind of happy.

Ryan turns around and sees Jim Halpert walking towards him. Fuck. He takes a deep breath and puts on his friendliest client smile. "Hey, Jim," he says. It's not that good an effort – there's a reason he never made a sale, and he suspects the smile is part of that reason. He holds out his hand to shake.

Jim does not look pleased to see him, so at least the feeling's mutual. "Hey Ryan," he says. Then he turns to Pam and whispers, not nearly quietly enough, "What is Ryan doing here?"

Pam rolls her eyes. "Reunion special." She doesn't even bother to try to keep her voice down.

"Oh, right," Jim says. Ryan's still holding his hand out, and out of the corner of his eye he can see that Randall's filming them.

Jim notices too, and quickly moves to shake Ryan's hand.

"So I guess congratulations are in order," Ryan says. "After all these years, achieving your life's ambition like this."

"My what?" Jim says.

"Your life's ambition," Ryan says. "Pam. Nice work there."

Pam gives Ryan a give-me-a-break look. Ryan shrugs at her. Jim looks between the two of them like he doesn't much like them communicating wordlessly like that. Too bad, buddy.

"So Jim," Ryan says, turning back to him. "What are you doing these days?"

"Um," Jim says, reluctantly turning to Ryan. "I'm a steel salesman. At Steel Technologies."

"Oh," Ryan says, nodding and raising his eyebrows at Pam. "A steel salesman. That's... awesome."

Jim looks like he's not sure whether or not Ryan's making fun of him. Pam looks like she's sure, and isn't happy about it. "Um, thanks," Jim says.

"So, you guys are going to live... ?" Ryan says.

"Here in Scranton," Jim supplies.

"In Scranton," Ryan says, trying to sound impressed. "Oh, that'll be nice. It's a great town."

Pam steps on his foot, hard. He tries not to wince. Just then the florist comes up again. "Now, I have some other ideas for the arch," she says to Pam. Pam looks at Ryan.

"Please, go ahead," Ryan says, sitting down on one of the folding chairs. "Pretend I'm not here."

Pam rolls her eyes at him, but starts talking to the florist about roses versus gardenias anyway.

"What do you think, Jim?" she says.

Jim shrugs. "I don't care. Whatever you want."

"Uh huh," Pam says, and Ryan sees a little flash of annoyance cross her face. Interesting. Jim puts his arm around her shoulders as she goes back to talking to the florist, rubbing his thumb against her bare arm, which Ryan knows must be annoying Pam. She always hated Ryan getting mushy when she was trying to concentrate on something else.

"Okay," Pam says, after she and the florist seem to finally have settled on roses. "So. Jim, you're picking up my grandma at the airport, right?"

"Right," Jim says.

"And Mom's talking to the caterer," Pam says. "And I need to go pick up my dress from the tailor."

Ryan wonders if she's gotten a car since she left New York.

"Oh, shoot," Jim says. "You don't have a car. Um. Maybe we could do it on the way to the airport?"

Pam looks at her watch. "We don't have time."

"Oh, I don't mind taking you," Ryan offers. "If you need transportation."

Pam looks at him. "Um," she says. "I don't know that that's a good idea."

Ryan shrugs, suit yourself.

Jim looks at his own watch. "Well," he says. "Your sister doesn't get into town until tonight, and your dad's busy, so I don't know how else you're going to get anywhere. Maybe going with Ryan would work."

Randall's filming the scene with great interest. Ryan looks at his fingernails, pretending he couldn't care less what she decides.

"Oh, don't put on that casual act," Pam says to him. "Fine, you can drive me."

Ryan smiles a little to himself. "You're welcome," he says.

"Yeah, sure, thanks a lot," Pam says. Somehow it doesn't sound that sincere.

Between Pam and Ryan in the front seats and Hunter and Randall in the back, it's a pretty full car. But even so, this is his chance to talk to her without Jim around, crowd or not, and he doesn't want to miss it.

"Look," he says, as he pulls away from the curb and heads towards Scranton proper. "I wanted to apologize, actually."

"Oh?" Pam says.

"Yeah," Ryan says. "I know I was a terrible husband, and I'm sorry about it." He stops at a stop sign for a beat, then turns left.

"Oh," Pam says.

In the backseat, Ryan can hear Hunter shifting uncomfortably. Well, too bad, he's had to hear a lot of uncomfortable things over the past four years, so he should be used to it by now.

"Well," Pam says. "Thanks, I guess."

"Yeah, I know, too little, too late," Ryan says. "Still." He merges onto I-80.

"You weren't that bad," Pam says. "Really."

Ryan glances over and smiles at her. "We had some good times."

"Yeah," Pam says. She looks thoughtful.

Ryan glances over his shoulder and changes lanes to pass a silver minivan that's going 55. "I worked too much, though," he says. "You were smart to get out of it."

Pam shifts in her seat, slouching a little bit more to get comfortable. "Mmm," she says.

Ryan can hear Hunter texting on his phone, the quick succession of quiet amelodic beeps. He's probably posting to his Twitter about what his annoying boss is making him do. Ryan tries to ignore it.

"So," Ryan says to Pam, after a few minutes. "How does the reality compare?"

"What reality?" Pam says.

"Jim," Ryan says. "How does the reality compare to the unreality?"

Pam's forehead is crinkled. "I'm not sure I follow you."

"Well," Ryan says. He's really aware of the camera on him. "I mean, you watched the whole documentary, and there was Jim, like, pining after you and being this hypothetical perfect boyfriend. And you were married to me and I was never home. And when I was home, sometimes I was cranky, and I probably didn't ever say the right things, and in comparison I... anyway. It doesn't matter. I was just wondering if the real Jim lives up to the Jim on the documentary."

"Oh," Pam says. She puts her feet up on the dashboard and starts to roll the window down. He knows it's to do that dorky thing she likes, pushing her hand through the air rushing by, moving it in dolphin patterns. It's very senior year of high school. "Well, nobody could live up to that," she says. "But Jim's pretty good. He really likes me."

An interesting answer, when you look at it. He's hoping the note of faint disappointment he hears isn't just his own wishful thinking.

"Well, there's a lot to like," Ryan says, raising his voice so she can hear him over the roaring air swooping by the window. He taps his thumbs against the steering wheel, and is conscious of Pam looking at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her knobby knees, sticking out from under the oranges and reds of her sundress. He glances over and smiles briefly.

Pam starts rolling the window back up, and when it finally closes the car seems really quiet all of a sudden, quiet like a blow, like his ears need to pop. "I wish you wouldn't do that," Pam says.

"What?" Ryan says.

"Be nice to me," Pam says. "It's unnerving."

Ryan shrugs. "Sorry," he says, and goes to turn the radio on. "What, are you not going to do the dolphin thing?"

Pam shrugs and tucks her hair behind her ears. "I'm a grown-up," she says. "I just forgot for a minute. I guess driving with you makes me feel more immature."

"Ha, ha," Ryan says. He flips stations until he finds one playing Nickelback, a song he knows she hates, and leaves it there. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her trying really hard not to react. She makes it through two full minutes before she cracks and changes the station.


	4. Doggone it, C. K. Dexter Haven. Either I'm gonna sock you or you're gonna sock me.

Earlier in the day, Toby had let slip that Jim's bachelor party was that night, starting with dinner at the Applebee's in Wilkes-Barre. Which is worth knowing for that alone, quite frankly. Ryan takes Hunter and slips the hostess $20 to seat them near the big table where Jim's friends are.

Jim glances over as they walk up to their table, and his eyes narrow.

"Oh, hey, Jim," Ryan says. "This is a weird coincidence. What are you doing here?"

"It's my bachelor party," Jim says. There are a bunch of guys his age around – Ryan recognizes Jim's roommate from that time Jim had that barbecue, a million years ago, and thinks it's funny Jim's still in Scranton, still hanging out with the same people. He doesn't know if it's nice, or if it's sad.

"Oh, awesome," Ryan says. "Have a good time." Toby waves at him mildly from one end of the table.

Ryan had a vague idea about crashing the bachelor party, maybe tailing Jim to take pictures if there are strippers, to show Pam later… except, now that he thinks about it, Pam wouldn't really care that much, and the odds of Jim Boyscout Halpert getting a stripper are pretty low.

So now that he's actually at Applebee's, he wonders if his motivation was more his desire to annoy Jim Halpert for no good reason, or Applebee's moderately priced high-quality comfort food. It might be a tie – he never gets to eat chicken fingers in New York.

Hunter's looking at Jim. "So are you going to punch him sometime this weekend?" he asks Ryan.

Ryan blinks and looks up from the menu. "What?" he says.

"It seems like maybe that's where this weekend is headed," Hunter says. "That or pushing someone into a pool."

Ryan looks at him. "I told you to stop watching Gossip Girl," he says, then glances at Randall, who's currently interviewing Toby. "You aren't giving the documentary any interviews, are you?"

"Uh, yeah," Hunter says. "Why, was I not supposed to?"

Ryan sighs.

Hunter looks back at Jim. "I don't know if you could take him," Hunter says. "I mean, he's a lot taller than you."

"Yeah, but he's scrawny," Ryan says. "He's got chicken legs."

Hunter looks appraisingly at Ryan's admittedly scrawny arms.

"Shut up," Ryan says. "I'm scrappy. And anyway, I'm not going to punch anyone."

"That's a relief," Hunter says.

Sometimes Hunter is really annoying to have around. "So, hey, Hunter," Ryan says. "How's your band?"

"Shut up," Hunter says, blushing and going back to his menu. That always gets him, after that thing last year.

The bachelor party gets drunker and louder as the evening wears on, people up and out of their seats, moving around the table. When Ryan's about halfway through his chicken fingers (dipping them in honey mustard sauce, and oh, they are everything he dreamed of and more), Toby pulls out the chair on Ryan's left and takes a seat.

"Hey, Toby," Ryan says. "What's up?"

"Oh, not much," Toby says. He's got a mug of beer, one of those plastic frosted ones that this kind of place tends to serve. Like it's a pretend beer, at Epcot or something. "So, you're here for Pam's wedding, huh?"

"Yeah," Ryan says. He's starting to feel weird about it, like the whole thing is a stupid idea. But then he thinks back to Pam in his car, her feet on the dashboard, and he knows he can't leave, no matter how restraining-order pathetic it is. "It's weird, huh?"

Toby shrugs. "Not really," he says. "I went to my ex-wife's wedding."

"Oh yeah?" Ryan says.

"Yeah," Toby says. "For Sasha. My ex wanted us to be, uh, amicable."

"Mmm," Ryan says. "How's that working out for you?"

"Terrific," Toby says, too fast.

Ryan laughs. Hunter clears his throat and mutters something about going to the bathroom, before getting up and hurrying away. Subtlety and tolerance for other's people's uncomfortable conversations are not two of the reasons Ryan employs him.

"Yeah," Ryan says. It strikes him that Toby might be the one person who knows what Ryan's going through, even though at the same time confiding in Toby feels a little pathetic. But he's pretty sure the time for worrying about being pathetic is long past. Behind him, Jim guffaws loudly and claps somebody on the back. "So, uh, what'd you do the night your wife left you?" Ryan asks.

"Oh," Toby says. He starts fiddling with the empty place setting, undoing the rolled up napkin. "I don't know. Cried, I guess. You?"

"Like a little girl," Ryan says.

Toby laughs. "Yeah."

Ryan looks over at Jim, who's clearly bubbling over with happiness, talking to his friends. Ryan remembers feeling that way when he had Pam had first gotten together, like it was the best high ever, like nothing else mattered.

"Jim and Pam," Toby says, following his look. "That's hard to compete with."

"TV Guide called them an epic love story for the twenty-first century," Ryan says.

"I know," Toby says. He's started to shred the extra napkin into tiny pieces of confetti. "Do you ever think about what would've happened if the documentary had never come to film us?"

"Yeah," Ryan says. "All the time."

Toby nods and takes a sip of his beer. "Jim's sure excited," he says as he puts his mug down. He looks kind of sad. Not that that's much of a change from his default expression, but still. "The way he talks about Pam, it's like she's superhuman."

"Got her on a pedestal?" Ryan says.

"Yeah, a really tall one," Toby says.

"Poor Pam," Ryan says, and takes a bite of chicken finger. He can see Hunter back at the bar, talking to the girl behind the counter.

A waitress walks by their table too fast and the shreds of napkin Toby's been creating swirl, some flying off the table. "Whoops," Toby says, trying to catch them. Ryan chews, watching the paper skitter out of his hands. Toby dumps the scraps he managed to grab back on the tabletop. "So," he says, in his soft, tentative voice. "What was it like, being married to Pam?"

Ryan breathes deep and tries to think. What was it like? "I don't know," he says. Suddenly he notices that he's fiddling with the wedding ring he still – pathetically – wears, and he makes himself stop. "Sarcastic, and comfortable, and… I don't know. Sometimes she'd draw me little funny pictures and leave them around the apartment. Like of cartoon frogs, or weird distortions of the Dunder Mifflin logo. One time she drew me riding a unicorn."

Toby laughs. "Nice," he says.

"Yeah," Ryan says, and looks at Jim again. Bastard's practically glowing, he's so happy. The last chicken finger suddenly seems pretty unappetizing, and Ryan drops it back onto his plate.

"Sorry you got divorced," Toby says.

"Yeah," Ryan says, and wishes his drink was stronger. Fuck you, Applebee's.

The bachelor party's going to move on to someone else's house later, Toby tells him, but the whole crashing thing isn't really working out, so it doesn't matter much. Ryan pays the bill, and gets up to leave while Jim and his pals are still sitting around the Applebee's table.

"C'mon, Hunter," he says as he passes the bar on his way out. The bartender's writing her number on a cocktail napkin.

"One sec," Hunter says.

Ryan keeps walking and waits for him out in the parking lot, leaning against the car. The warm air smells like freshly cut grass and hamburgers, and across the parking lot, a family's getting into a minivan. He watches the dad pick up a toddler and put him in a carseat, and shoves his hands into his pockets. Parking lots can be strangely lonely places.

**

Ryan drops Hunter off at the hotel, which Ryan is paying for, with instructions to consolidate the paperwork Ryan needs to sign, to write up Ryan's messages, and find out the status of the numbers on the Utica branch. If Ryan's paying for Hunter to be here, he's going to get his money's worth, and he doesn't want to get behind while he's out of the office.

After Hunter heads inside the Radisson, Ryan just drives around town for a little bit, windows down, moving slowly through the suburban streets. He's in Scranton pretty often for work, but then he's usually got his head down, hurrying in and out, thinking about business the whole time. He doesn't see Scranton quite like this anymore, aimless on a dark summer night, muggy hot air coming through the open windows. It reminds him of high school, driving like this on these same streets, nowhere to go. He stops off at a BP to fill up the gas tank, buys a Dr. Pepper while he's there, cold from the fridge. Back in the car, he's heading vaguely in the direction of Pam's house when he gets stopped by a freight train and has to wait for it to pass. The train whistle echoes through the dark, deep and mournful, and Ryan drinks his Dr. Pepper, wondering what he's going to do next.

It's so easy to break up a wedding in the movies – you just show up and be charming and she realizes she loves you after all. It's not like real life, when all you can think about is all the ways you should've been better to her, about the look on her face that last night you came home too late from the office again, the night before she left. In the movies, you don't have to wonder when she fell out of love with you, and in movies you know it's going to end happily, not with you going back to New York alone. Which, deep down, Ryan is fully aware is going to happen in this case. These shenanigans can only lead to loneliness, with an optional face-punching. And Hunter's probably right that Ryan would lose in a fight with Jim. Too bad, too, 'cause Ryan would take deep satisfaction in clocking that dude.

The last car of the train speeds past and the gates start to go up, clanging. Ryan puts the soda bottle back in the cupholder, his hand wet from condensation. He wipes his palm on his jeans and drives to Pam's house, making the turns out of habit and muscle memory as much as anything. Jim will be at the bachelor party for a lot longer, even the lame-ass bachelor party he's having – it's only nine o'clock.

He can hear laughing inside the house even from the front stoop, and when he rings the bell, the door's flung open by Pam's sister Lori, Ryan's favorite in-law. She actually beams when she sees Ryan.

"Ryan!" she says, and gives him a big hug. "It's so awesome to see you! What are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know," Ryan says. "That documentary special."

"Right," Lori says. She has a little glint in her eye, like she doesn't quite believe that reason, but she doesn't say anything. Instead she leans toward him and whispers, "I'm about to die of boredom. Pam's making us make these little table decorations. You have to come help."

"Oh, okay," Ryan says. That was easy. Lori grabs him by the hand and pulls him into the living room, where a bunch of women are sitting on the floor, surrounded by craft supplies. Ryan recognizes most of them – Pam's mom and aunt and a couple of cousins, her best friend from high school. The bridal party, he assumes.

"Look who's going to help!" Lori says. Ryan sort of waves weakly. It's a good thing Pam's family always liked him, so the looks they're giving him are more mild social awkwardness than hostility.

Pam looks at Ryan with weary resignation. "Oh, did you get tired of crashing Jim's bachelor party?" she says. So Jim called her. That... is not surprising.

"I didn't crash it," he says. "We both just happened to be at Applebee's. It's a popular restaurant, Pamela."

Lori pulls Ryan down to sit next to her, even though Pam looks unconvinced.

"I'm not sure your deep abiding love of chicken fingers quite explains it," Pam says. "And besides, there are no chicken fingers here at my house. What are you doing here, Ryan?"

"Oh, give him a break," Lori says. "If someone offers to help with your dumb party favors, you say yes no matter who they are."

Pam sighs, but doesn't say anything, so Lori starts showing Ryan how to wrap jellybeans in elegantly-colored tissue paper, and tie them into little bundles with what's essentially a fancy pipe cleaner. Pam pointedly starts talking to one of her cousins.

"See? It's easy," Lori says.

"Yup," Ryan says, and starts making his own. "Jellybeans?" he says to Lori in an undertone, just loud enough for Pam to hear.

Lori rolls her eyes. "I know, right?" she says.

"The documentary fans will be pleased," Ryan says.

When he glances up, Pam's frowning at him. He smiles at her as aggressively as he can.

"Get this," Lori says. She actually talks quietly enough that Pam can't hear, and Ryan can see Pam reluctantly go back to talking to the cousin next to her. "At the rehearsal dinner tomorrow they're doing one of those wedding videos, right?"

"Set to Green Day's 'Time of Your Life'?" Ryan says. "Including their baby pictures?"

"That's the one," Lori says. "_And_ it includes documentary footage. And guess who volunteered to edit it for them?"

Ryan shrugs.

"Greg," Lori says.

"Oh, _God_," Ryan says. "The wedding the documentary built."

Lori nods. "It's pretty sick," she says, and ties up her favor with a green pipe cleaner, tossing it to the middle of the circle where the completed ones are. She grabs another piece of tissue paper and a handful of jellybeans. "Uh, so," she says, looking sidelong at Ryan. "You still in love with her?"

Ryan glances over at Pam, who's listening to a story her mom's telling, smiling and carefully dropping jellybeans into the center of a square of tissue paper. She's making sure there's a good mix of colors, he can tell, her long fingers picking them out carefully from the jellybean bowl instead of just grabbing a handful like everyone else. God, he is so in love with her.

When he glances back, Lori's watching him. "Yeah, I thought so," she says.

Ryan makes a bundle out of the favor he's making and starts to attach the pipe cleaner. He clears his throat. "I'm screwed, huh?"

Lori's smile is rueful. "I'm afraid so, junior."

"Yeah," Ryan says, and sighs. "I know."

**

They finish up all the favors in about an hour. Ryan mostly listens to the conversations around him without saying much, all about someone's new baby and the new minister at Pam's parents' church. When he uses up the last of the supplies he can reach, he pushes himself up and starts collecting plates and glasses from around the living room, the remains of earlier hors d'oeuvres, and takes them into the kitchen to wash.

He's rinsing them off and putting them in the dishwasher when Pam's mom comes in.

"Aren't you sweet?" she says, putting her hand on his back.

"Well," Ryan says. "I figured it was literally the least I could do."

Pam's mom laughs and puts the glasses she's carrying down on the counter.

"Sorry for crashing your girls' night," Ryan says, as Pam's mom starts helping him load the dishwasher.

She puts two glasses in, then says, "You're doing a lot of apologizing today."

Pam really does tell her mom everything. Ryan shrugs. "No more than necessary."

Pam's mom looks at him, like she hasn't quite figured him out after all this time. "Mmm," she says.

He rinses another plate. He can see his own reflection in the window over the sink, pale and kind of sad. He wouldn't take him back either.

"I'm sorry about all this, sweetheart," Pam's mom says.

God, he wasn't expecting sympathy. It makes him feel worse. "Well, it's my own fault, mostly," he says.

Pam's mom looks thoughtful. "Mostly," she says.

In the dark windowed reflection, Ryan sees Pam come into the room behind them and stand in the doorway for a few seconds, watching their backs as they work together. For a second it's almost like they're married again, hanging out with her family on, like, the Fourth of July. He wonders if Pam's remembering that too, all the times he helped her mom with the dishes, how well they know each other, each other's families. Pam keeps watching them, a strange look on her face.

"Hey, Ryan," she finally says. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

Ryan finishes rinsing the last plate and hands it to her mom, shutting off the water. "Sure," he says, turning towards her as he dries his hands.

He follows her out the back door, where she sits on the stoop. He sits down next to her, the space so narrow they're shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, and rests his arms on his knees. A mosquito buzzes past his ear.

"What are you doing?" Pam asks, her voice low.

Ryan shrugs, suddenly feeling very tired. Her body's so familiar, sitting next to him, the way she holds her shoulders when she's not sure of herself, the homey way she smells, laundry detergent and the garden-y smell of her conditioner. "Isn't it obvious?" he says.

"Yeah, actually," Pam says. "It's kind of bumming me out."

He takes a little gamble and lets himself lean into her, just a bit. "Yeah, me too," he says. She doesn't move away. He can feel the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. Moonlight's shining on the white arch, dim in the middle of the yard.

"Remember the night before our wedding?" Ryan says. They'd snuck out to sit on this same stoop, escaping from the crowd of relatives inside to drink a beer. The yard had looked just the same. The house had been noisy, but outside it was quiet, and they'd talked about nothing in particular. Ryan remembers he held her hand.

"Yeah," Pam says, and hugs her arms around herself a little bit. "That was a long time ago."

"Yeah," Ryan says.

He can hear muffled voices inside the kitchen, Pam's mom, then someone else answering.

"Are you really going to live in Scranton?" Ryan says.

Pam shrugs. "It's not as lonely as New York."

God, rip his heart out. He rubs his face with the palm of his hand. "I know," he says. "I'm really sorry."

"Oh, stop apologizing," Pam says. "It's driving me nuts. Almost as nuts as you showing up everywhere I go today."

"Sorry," Ryan says. Then he hears himself and laughs.

Pam shakes her head, smiling. The wind picks up in the trees overhead, and somewhere in the distance a car door slams shut. "You staying at your parents'?" she asks.

"Yeah," Ryan says.

"Tell them hi from me," Pam says.

Ryan nods. He wants to kiss her. "I will," he says.

He remembers the first time he saw her, sitting behind the reception desk at the Scranton office. He knows at the time he didn't think much of it, but retroactively he loves her then, how young she was, how young they both were. When he got hired permanently as a salesman there, it was his first real job, and on the weekends he went to parties with kegs, in apartments without real furniture. Now he wears thousand dollar suits, has an assistant, and goes to catered cocktail parties thrown by CFOs. He's divorced from the top graphic designer in the company. It's pretty much exactly the adult life he envisioned for himself as a college student, divorce included, but somehow it's more depressing than he thought it would be. Like his life is narrowing, potential turning into actualities, and the actualities turning sad. He feels vaguely middle-aged, old and tired, wishes he could go back to that receptionist he hadn't really noticed and start it over, with better priorities.

"Well, I still love you," Ryan says, because it's dark out and they're alone, and because he has to say it sometime. She's not looking at him and she doesn't really react, just keeps breathing the same slow breaths. He slows his own lungs so they're breathing together, in and out. "Just thought I'd throw that out there," he says.

"Yeah, I know," Pam says.

He doesn't know if she means she knows he loves her, or that she knows he's just throwing that out there, but he guesses it doesn't much matter either way. They sit there side by side. The ribbons tied to the wedding arch flutter in the night air.


	5. Be whatever you like, you're my redhead.

Ryan lets himself into his parents' house just before midnight, the ground floor already dark. He feels his way up to his old room, through the deep darkness in the stairwell, his hand running instinctively around the picture frames. He's come in late like this so many times over the years, past his curfew, or when he was in college and didn't have a curfew. When he'd been married to Pam, they'd stayed in the guest room downstairs, where there was a double bed, but now he's back in the room he grew up in, bunk beds with baseball players on the sheets. He flips the light switch, a warm yellow glow, and sees that his parents' dog, Fletch, is waiting for him on the foot of the lower bunk, wagging his tail hopefully as Ryan comes in. Ryan scratches him behind the ears.

He changes into old flannel pajama pants, not bothering with a shirt, and putters around his old room, looking at the books he didn't bother to take with him when he moved away. His parents don't come in here much – there's a thin layer of dust on the stereo.

As Ryan's about to get into bed, Fletch's ears perk up, and he looks toward the door, which is weird – usually Fletch is too tired at this time of night to do much beyond wag his tail. When Ryan looks out the window, he sees headlights in the driveway. What... ?

As he's heading back down the stairs to see what's going on, he can hear somebody yelling outside, coming up the walk. "Ryan Howard the temp!" he hears. "Ryan Howard!" Oh God, it's Jim Halpert.

Ryan wrenches the door open and interrupts Jim in the middle of another yell. "Shh!" he says. "My parents are asleep upstairs."

Jim's pretty hammered. Ryan hopes he didn't drive here, but when he looks over, luckily Jim's old roommate's hanging out the window of the car. "Sorry, dude," he says. Ryan tries to remember his name. Matt? Mike? "I didn't know where we were going until we got here and he started yelling."

"'S okay," Ryan says. He takes Jim by the arm and shuts the front door behind him. "Let's talk outside, buddy," he says, leading him back toward the car. Jim stops just a few feet away from the front door though, swaying slightly on his feet. Ryan crosses his arms across his bare chest and says, "So what's up, bro?"

"You," Jim says. "Need to leave Pam alone."

"Do I?" Ryan says. Matt – no, Mark! Ryan remembers. Mark hasn't bothered to get out of the car. There's another guy in there with him, but Ryan can't see who it is.

It's a pretty funny situation, really. Jim swaying in Ryan's parents' front yard, Ryan in his pajamas, a couple of frat guys watching them from the car.

"Yes," Jim says, very definitely. He goes to poke Ryan in the chest, but misses.

Ryan catches Jim's hand before he can try to poke Ryan again. "Don't worry," he says. "You're marrying her Saturday, aren't you? Not me."

"That's right," Jim says. "Me, not you." He wrenches his arm free and pokes Ryan just above the nipple.

"Dude," Ryan says.

"Listen to me," Jim says.

Ryan rubs his forehead, trying not to smile. "I'm listening," he says. He sits down on the front steps. Jim towers over him this way, but it's better than Jim towering over him while he's standing up. Tall bastard.

"Are you still in love with her?" Jim says.

Ryan looks up at him. He wonders, statistically, how many bachelor parties end with the groom accosting his fiancee's ex-husband. He should get Hunter to look it up. "What does it matter?" Ryan says.

"Oh," Jim says. "It matters."

"Not really," Ryan says.

Jim starts to try to sit down, but loses his balance halfway through and goes sprawling. He manages to get into a sitting position somehow, propping himself up oddly with his arms. "I don't like this ground," he says.

"Came out of nowhere," Ryan murmurs.

"Out of nowhere," Jim repeats.

Ryan scratches his shoulder. "I think you better go sleep it off," he says.

Jim shakes his head and keeps shaking it. "I came here to say something to you."

Ryan laces his fingers together and puts them behind his head, his elbows in vees. Suddenly he wonders where Randall is with the camera. "Did you ditch the documentary?" Ryan asks.

Jim's still shaking his head from the last thing Ryan said, but Ryan thinks it goes for this too. "They're in the car," Jim says.

Oh. So that's the other dude sitting with Mark. Well. It'll be quite a special episode.

"Ryan," Jim says. "I have something to say."

"Hit me," Ryan says, and yawns. It's late, he's too old for this. The night air feels weird and cool on his bare chest, but the front steps he's sitting on are still warm from the day's sun, heat soaking through his pajama pants.

"Pam," Jim says, "is wonderful, and perfect, and deserves happiness, and you treated her very badly and I resent it."

"Oh, is that all?" Ryan says. He was expecting something a little more dramatic. On thinking about it, though, he doesn't know what that would've been. "Tell me something I don't know."

"I resent it," Jim repeats. He crawls toward Ryan and pokes him in the nipple again.

"Jesus," Ryan says. "Leave my nipples alone."

"No, I will not," Jim says. "You leave Pam's nipples alone."

"Hokay!" Ryan says. He's pretty much equally torn between the urges either to laugh or to punch Jim in the face, and is desperately trying to do neither. He's just glad they don't have a pool for anyone to get pushed into. "I think we're done here." He levers himself up and stands there, looking down at drunk Jim.

"Pam is perfect," Jim says.

Ryan reaches out a hand to help him up. "Come on, there, tiger," he says. Jim looks at Ryan's hand like he isn't quite sure what to do with it. Ryan grabs his forearm and starts pulling him up anyway. "Anyway, Pam isn't perfect," Ryan says as Jim staggers to his feet. "She's a person."

"She is not a person," Jim says. "She is my dream girl."

"Okay," Ryan says, trying to make his voice soothing. He glances over at the car, trying to signal Mark to come help him. Mark doesn't move. Ryan starts to haul Jim towards the car.

"You know what's better than a dream girl?" Ryan says, guiding Jim along the front path.

"What?" Jim says.

"An actual human being."

Jim just looks confused. "You're a weirdo, Ryan Howard," he says.

Mark finally gets out of the car when Ryan and Jim are a few yards away, and between the two of them, they get Jim tucked away in the backseat okay.

"Sorry," Mark says again, looking at Ryan's bare feet on the asphalt of the driveway.

"Eh, I probably deserved it," Ryan says. He rubs one foot against the opposite leg to get off a pebble sticking to it. The bottom of his foot is black with dirt and tar.

Mark shrugs, and opens the driver's side door. "I don't know, man," he says. "This wedding...." He trails off.

"What?" Ryan says.

"Well, I never expected it," Mark says. "But Jim never got her out of his system, so. I don't know."

"Maybe that's love," Ryan says. "Never getting someone out of your system."

Mark snorts. "Maybe," he says. He says that 'Maybe' like it means 'Maybe if monkeys fly out my butt.' "Anyway," Mark says, "I'm best man, and officially supportive, so I'm sure it's cool. And if anybody asks...."

"Tonight never happened," Ryan says. He looks directly at the documentary camera, its one eye staring at them through the windshield. "And no one will ever know," he intones soberly, straight into it.

Mark follows his look and snorts again. "Yeah," he says, and gets in the car. Jim seems to already be passed out in the back seat. Mark puts the car in reverse. "Later, man," he says out the open car window.

"Later," Ryan says, and starts to gingerly walk back to the house, trying to avoid the pebbles along the walkway. It's a relief when he's finally on the carpet of the front hallway, not just because his feet feel better but also because he's not out making a spectacle of himself in front of God and the neighbors and the camera.

His parents don't seem to have woken up, and Fletch is sound asleep at the bottom of his bunk bed, so all is well. He washes his feet off in the bathroom, splashes some water on his face, and goes to lie down on baseball player sheets, contorted around the dog.

**

The next morning, Ryan throws on jeans and a blue t-shirt – Pam's favorite shirt of his – and goes over to the hotel to spend a couple hours with Hunter, working on the stuff he'd had Hunter put together the night before.

As they're finishing up, Hunter says, "How's the project coming?"

Ryan looks at the Utica numbers and isn't quite sure what Hunter's talking about. "Project?"

"Getting Pam back," Hunter says.

Oh, that. Ryan spins his pen on the back of his hand. "About as well as can be expected," he says.

"That bad, huh?"

Ryan hates when Hunter tries to be sympathetic. It always seems to come out sort of mean.

"Yeah, well, I'll probably stick around through the wedding anyway," Ryan says. "You can go back to New York, though. I'll put you on the Martz bus."

Hunter shrugs. "Sure, whatever." Ryan drops him off at the station right after lunch – he'll feel better with Hunter gone, he's decided. At least that way Hunter can't give any more interviews to the documentary, and besides, Ryan can't keep paying for a hotel room for him just so Ryan'll have somebody to sit with at Applebee's when he crashes bachelor parties. He's glad Hunter stopped asking if things were in his job description two years ago.

That afternoon, Ryan goes to the wedding rehearsal, obviously. If he's going to annoy Pam to death, he's not going to be half-hearted about it, and when Pam sees him there, she looks irritated but not surprised. Jim's next to her, looking kind of pale and hungover, his hair limp against his forehead. Greg pulls Ryan aside for an interview before he can talk to either of them, which is maybe for the best. Not that Ryan has anything else to say to them anyway – at this point, he's mostly showing up to things out of a last sad gasp of hope and the feeling that he's made some kind of internal commitment to seeing this thing through, no matter how hopeless it is. He wonders if Pam's going to change her name to Halpert.

Greg asks him about how he feels about Pam, the wedding, his job, etc, etc. Ryan gives brief, noncommittal answers – the documentary has enough of his retardation on film without him voluntarily adding to it.

After he finishes the interview, he slides into one of the seats about halfway from the front, slouching down to watch the rehearsal. There are a lot of people milling around, waiting to get started – Pam's off to his left, talking on her cell phone. He hears something about salmon, and is glad that at least he's not the one having to deal with last minute catering disasters.

Jim's up front, talking to Mark and pinching the bridge of his nose like he has a headache. But then he looks up and sees Ryan sitting alone, seems to make up his mind about something, and heads in Ryan's direction. Oh, great.

But Pam hangs up the phone and comes and intercepts Jim before he can reach Ryan, touching his arm a few feet away. "That was the caterer," she says to Jim. "I guess instead of salmon we're having swordfish."

"Oh," Jim says. "Well, that's okay, right?"

"Yeah, I guess," Pam says. She seems stressed out. "Hey, you picked up the centerpieces for the reception this afternoon, right?"

"Oh," Jim says, in a voice like something horrifying has just dawned on him. "Um. Whoops."

"Jim!" Pam says. "How could you forget? I called and reminded you this morning!"

Ryan remembers this argument, how the script is supposed to go. Now Jim should come back with a promise to get them tomorrow morning instead, and an excuse maybe about being hungover, and maybe say something about how she shouldn't flip out so much. Then they can yell for a little bit and both blow off some steam, and everybody will feel better afterwards. Pam and Ryan had this kind of stressed out argument like 30 times when they were married, and it's no big deal.

So Ryan's really surprised when Jim just kind of stands there silently, his lips tightening, and that instead of saying something rude back, he turns on his heel and walks away.

Well, that's... something. Pam stands there looking sort of bereft, like she's not quite sure what happened and has no idea what to do now. Wow. Ryan wonders if their really terrible conflict-resolution skills came up in pre-marital counseling.

Pam glances over at Ryan and glares. "Oh, don't sit there smirking," she says. She's clearly some combination of angry and embarrassed and upset, and he doesn't really blame her. Between the stress and the non-fight and Ryan witnessing the whole thing, he can see why she's actually on the verge of angry tears.

"Sorry," Ryan says, getting up. He digs a Kleenex out of his pocket and hands it to her. "It's okay, Pamela," he says in an undertone. "Don't cry."

"God, shut up," she says, taking the Kleenex from him and wiping at her eyes. Her voice is shaky, and he tentatively rubs her back a little bit. She doesn't pull away, but she doesn't make eye contact either, just keeps taking deep breaths and trying to pull herself together.

It only takes a few seconds for her to calm down. "Okay," she says. "I have to go find Jim."

"Okay," Ryan says, and watches her walk off towards the house, still carrying the Kleenex wadded up in her hand.

The camera is pointed right at him, and he glances sidelong at it. Yeah, quite a reunion special.

The rehearsal finally starts about fifteen minutes later, after Pam and Jim have come back out of the house looking like they're okay again. He doesn't know if that means they talked about it, or that they didn't. Either way, Ryan watches the wedding party walk down the aisle, doofy slow steps, looking even more ridiculous in their casual clothes. Lori waves at him a little bit as she passes him. He smiles at her.

He turns around to watch Pam walk in, and is surprised to see Michael Scott grab the arm her dad isn't holding and start walking down the aisle with both of them. Pam's eyes widen and she jerks her elbow away, but Michael doesn't give up that easily. Ryan has no idea where Michael came from, but then he sees Gene from the documentary walk around the side of the house looking sort of smug and amused, and oh. That would add some drama to the proceedings. Unscrupulous bastards. Ryan briefly feels guilty for starting the whole camera thing up again.

"Michael," Pam hisses. "Let go." Ryan sees her look meaningfully at Jim, like, _do something_, but Jim's just standing at the front like he has no clue what course of action to take.

"Okay, okay," Michael says. He lets go of Pam, but he doesn't sit down or go away. Instead he raises both his hands and says, "I'd like to make a toast."

Ryan looks back to Jim, but everybody up front, especially the minister, looks too surprised to do anything. And Jim, maybe predictably, is just making a face at the camera. So that's still going on.

Ryan rolls his eyes. "Hey, Michael," he says, standing up. "Why don't you come over here and sit with me?"

"What?" Michael says. "No, I'm making a toast."

"It's, uh, not really toast time," Ryan says. He walks over to take Michael by the arm. "Here, come watch with me."

He physically sits Michael down and takes his seat next to him. "Okay?" Ryan says. He kind of waves to the minister, like, carry on.

"Ryan," Michael whispers. "I'm just – I'm really touched you want me to sit with you."

Ryan nods at him as noncommittally as he can. When he glances back at Pam, she's giving him the most grateful look he's ever seen. He smiles and shrugs at her.

The rest of the rehearsal goes off with hardly a hitch – Ryan has to keep a hand on the back of Michael's neck to keep him sitting down, which is not really the direction he was hoping his relationship with Michael would go, and at one point, he has to put his hand over Michael's mouth. But it's worth it, to do for Pam. Or he thinks so until Michael starts licking his palm.

"Oh my God," Ryan says, and jerks his hand away. Ew. He rubs his hand on his jeans and thinks about all the ways he's going to kill Gene.

After the rehearsal wraps up, everybody's headed to get changed for the rehearsal dinner, and he doesn't even really get a chance to talk to Pam. She mouths "thank you" at him from across the yard, though, so that's something. But then she holds hands with Jim and goes into the house with him, so that's something else.

He thinks about going to the rehearsal dinner, too, but what's he going to do there? Look like a pathetic idiot some more? Instead he calls his parents and ask if they still want to go out to dinner together, and suspects he might be getting depressed. Rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, it's all so horribly real, like it's actually happening.

His parents very tactfully don't ask anything about Pam or the wedding, which he appreciates. They talk about his job, and his brother's new baby, and the latest season of American Idol. It's calming, like life goes on or whatever. Even if he stays divorced and loses Pam forever, he can always come back here and talk about American Idol with two people who love him.

Oh God, he's getting depressed again.

After they get home from the restaurant, Ryan doesn't quite know what to do. He watches a Seinfeld rerun with his dad, feeling antsy and at loose ends. When the credits run, he gets up.

"I think I'm going to go for a drive," Ryan says. His dad looks sympathetic and nods, and on his way out the door Ryan kisses his mom on the cheek.

He doesn't know where he's going, exactly. Wandering the streets of Scranton, Pennsylvania – he's been doing that a lot lately, it feels like. He rolls down the windows and makes turns without thinking about them too much, and finally ends up at St. Anthony Elementary School, pulling up across the street from the playground.

The place where Pam first kissed him. Well, he's going to finish up the weekend in style, anyway, brooding here.

He gets out of the car and runs his hands through his hair, probably messing it up beyond repair. Oh well, who cares, no one's going to see him. The swings and jungle gym are all still there, just like he remembers them, empty and dark. There's something about a playground at night that makes him feel like he should be smoking under streetlights. But he doesn't smoke, so. Instead he goes over to the third swing and sits down, moving himself back and forth gently with his feet on the sand.

The night's clear and warm, and he can see a lot of stars from where he sits, all bright and unmistakable. You can hardly see any stars at all in New York, there's so much light, so it's kind of strange and surprising they're all still up there, shining away. Like the world hasn't changed as much as it feels like it has since he moved to New York. The moon's round and full, and it's quiet, way quieter than it ever is in the city. He hears an owl hooting, somewhere over in the trees.

A car passes, headlights flickering over him as they turn onto the street that runs past the playground, and Ryan swings gently back and forth, thinking. The wedding's tomorrow – does he crash it? He doesn't think they ask if anyone has any reason these two shouldn't be joined together anymore, and even if they did, he doesn't think "The groom is a douchebag" is the kind of reason the minister would find valid.

Oh well. He knew coming down here that it was a suicide mission. At least he tried. He put up a good fight.

He makes a divot in the sand with his foot, then smoothes it back over again. Maybe he'll just go back to New York in the morning, skip the wedding altogether.

Another car comes around the corner, engine rumbling, but instead of continuing down the street, it slows and parks right behind Ryan's car. Ryan holds onto the chains of the swing, still swinging slightly, and watches as Pam gets out of the driver's seat. She's alone, still dressed for the rehearsal dinner, a green dress, a pretty one he's never seen before. He knows if Pam's here, the camera's probably not far away, but figures they parked around the corner and are sneaking up to try to give him and Pam the illusion of privacy. Well, what else is new. Learn a fresh trick, Greg.

He watches her walk towards him, her head down, holding a clutch in her right hand.

"Hi," he says, when she gets close enough to hear him.

She stops in front of him, and finally makes eye contact. "You weren't at your parents' house," she says.

"How did they know I'd be here?" Ryan asks. He's genuinely a little confused, since when he left _he_ hadn't even known he'd be there.

"They didn't," Pam says. She sets her clutch down on the sand and sits on the swing next to him. "I guessed."

Ryan twists himself with his foot so he's half facing her, then lets himself untwist again. "Good guess," he says. "First one?"

"Well, I know how sentimental you are," she says.

Ryan's sort of offended. "I am not," he says.

Pam raises her eyebrows at him, then pointedly looks around at where they are. "Oh really," she says. Very dry, Pamela Beesly, very dry.

"Shut up," Ryan says.

"This is right about where it happened, right?" Pam says. "This swing?"

Ryan decides to play dumb. "Where what happened?" he says.

"I like how you're pretending you're not pathetically in love with me _now_," Pam says. "That horse has left the barn, Ryan Howard."

Ryan tries not to smile. "Yeah," he says. "This is where you kissed me for the first time. We were standing up, though. You'd been on the swings, and you jumped off and landed right in front of me. You were laughing."

"Oh yeah?" Pam says. She stands up again and walks to position herself right about where she'd been that day. "Like, right about here?"

Ryan looks at her. "Yeah," he says. "You were there." He gets up and moves to where he had been standing, putting his hands on her arms to move her slightly to exactly where she'd been. "And I was here," he says.

So now they're standing really close, his hands still on her arms, right in each other's personal space. He can feel his whole body sort of lighting up, thrumming all over, like he's ten times more alive than he is normally, aware of all his fingers, of the span of his chest. Aware of Pam's body, too, the curve of her waist, the goosebumps on her upper arms, the ridge of her collarbone.

"And that's when I kissed you," Pam says, really quietly.

"Uh huh," Ryan says. He looks at her mouth, the line of it, the dip of her upper lip. The streetlights illuminate her face just enough so he can see her, though her eyes are still in shadow.

"Um, I called off the wedding," Pam says. "I told Jim I couldn't do it."

Ryan feels a thousand things at once, so much he's a little light-headed, happiness so intense it almost hurts, like his body's going to fly apart with it. "Did you?" Ryan says. He can't even think what's he's saying, with his whole body expanding like this. She called off the wedding. She called off the wedding. She's standing here so close she could kiss him, and she's not marrying Jim Halpert at all.

"Yeah," Pam says.

"Well, that's – that's good," Ryan starts, but Pam kisses him before he can say anything else. It's so easy and familiar, kissing her, like falling off a log into the best water he's ever felt. He puts his palm against her face, feels her cheek getting hot as she blushes under his hand, and she makes the little noise that's his favorite from her, a happy, involuntary noise.

When they finally pull apart, Ryan grins at her, too happy to stop himself. "So that's two out of three weddings you've called off a day or two before," he says.

Pam hits him on the arm, gently. "Asshole."

"I'm the only one you can actually stand to marry, huh?" he says.

Pam shakes her head at him, but she's smiling. "Looks that way," she says.

"What made you decide not to go through with it?" Ryan asks.

Pam shrugs and kisses him again. And once he's kissing her, he doesn't want to stop, so it's a minute or two before she can answer him.

When she pulls away she puts her hands against his chest, smoothing the fabric of his t-shirt. "I like this shirt," she says. "It brings out your eyes."

"I know," Ryan says. "Why didn't you end up marrying him?" He really wants to know, is the thing.

Pam's hands are still smoothing over his chest, and she's looking at the t-shirt logo, which says "Martha's Vineyard." They got it two summers ago, when they went out there for the day while Ryan was at a conference in Boston.

Pam bites her lower lip, then finally says, "I guess I thought we could pick up right where we left off, back before he moved away." She looks a little sad. "But we've changed and four months isn't really enough... I don't know. It wasn't the way I thought it would be. And I don't think I'm really the person he thought I.... Well. I don't know."

"Ah," Ryan says. He puts his hands on her waist and pulls her in closer again, kisses her lightly. Her lips are soft, familiar. "And because you're crazy about me, right?" he says as he pulls back.

Pam smiles and rolls her eyes. "Because I'm crazy, yes," she says.

"Ha, ha," Ryan says, and kisses her. When he pulls back this time, he says, very softly, "Marry me again?"

"You sure you want me?" Pam says. "Because I don't know, your feelings seem pretty ambiguous."

Ryan laughs. "Shut up."

Pam smiles at him, smiles and smiles. "I was hoping you'd ask me that," she says, quiet.

"Yeah?" Ryan says. He thinks about the first time he proposed, on 36th Street in the cold, and brushes a wisp of Pam's hair out of her face. "So?" he says.

"Yeah," Pam says. "Yeah, I think I'll risk it."

When Ryan finally finishes kissing her again, he catches a glimpse of the camera over her shoulder, Randall hiding behind a tree.

Ryan looks right at the lens, as deadpan as he can. "Sorry, guys," he says. "She's with me."

**  
END


	6. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A much belated epilogue, which may or may not add to the completed fic.

It's complicated to dismantle one marriage and... mantle another one, taking down the pieces of one to rebuild the other. She's done it once before -- the dismantling, anyway -- and it gives her flashbacks to 2006, cancelling the reception hall, losing deposits, returning gifts. But this time is different because Ryan's there, his familiar eyes bright, watching everything. He volunteers to help her dad take the wedding arch apart with a screwdriver, and as Pam puts folding chairs onto their dolly, she watches his skinny back, all bones and angles under his t-shirt, bent over, unscrewing. He and her dad pass tools back and forth without having to talk much, the silent understanding of people who've assembled too many bookshelves together, fixed too much plumbing.

The yard gradually looks less and less like a wedding and more and more like a backyard, and it's sad and hopeful all at once, like scraping off an old snakeskin to find the new, fresh skin underneath. The grass has gotten worn off the lawn in certain places from so many people, down the middle of the aisle, in front of the arch, bald muddy patches all trampled down.

"Ugh," Pam says, after she gets off the phone with the caterer. "Looks like we're stuck with all the food again. I guess we can freeze it? I hated this last time."

"For God's sake," Ryan says. "Let's just throw it out."

Pam blinks. "Children are starving in the Sudan, Ryan."

Ryan shrugs. "So, we'll give it to a homeless shelter," he says. He's still talking in that tone, the flippant one, but underneath it he's all airy fragility, like the skeleton of a lunar module, aluminum foil and narrow girders. He keeps looking at her like he doesn't quite believe she's back, like anything he says could break the spell, and it's almost terrifying, the sharp glassy edges of him, all elbows and knees.

They're engaged again, but neither of them quite knows what that means, and instead of talking about it they keep sneaking off to make out, kissing desperately in odd places: between the car and the bikes in the garage, pedals tangling with their legs; sitting on a low hanging branch of the maple tree in Ryan's parents' front yard; behind the door of her parents' dining room.

Lori walks in on them accidentally once, when they're in the upstairs bathroom of the Beesly house, Pam sitting on the counter, Ryan in between her knees, his hand on her breast, over her shirt. They probably should've shut the door all the way.

"Excuse me," Lori says reflexively, wincing away. "Oh, gross, you guys."

Ryan laughs into Pam's mouth and they separate, blushing a little bit. She's getting to know his body again, going slow, getting used to the idea of it all. It's familiar and unfamiliar all at once, a repetition that's not quite the same, a reprise, a resurrection.

Greg interviews them, not bothering to hide his deep disappointment.

"I'm sorry," Pam tells the camera. "I tried to have the ending you wanted, I really did."

It's like an exorcism, a final dissolving of the Jim fallback option that lived in the back of her mind, and all that's ahead of her is Ryan, their actual life, solid reality. The dirty stairwell leading up to their apartment, Ryan's baseball autographed by Barry Bonds, IKEA catalogues addressed to the Howard family even though she hadn't changed her name, the cheap coffee table that was the first piece of furniture they bought together, that they've never bothered to replace. The thousand objects making up the real world they lived in, that they had once and she guesses they'll have again. It's terrifying, though, marriage without a safety net, just reality and Ryan and her.

And she's nervous, nervous that when they get back to New York they'll fall back into the same patterns, that he'll start working 20 hour days, that they'll only see each other in passing. Nervous that now that she knows she's crazy about him, he'll decide he's not crazy about her after all, that he only wants her when she's holding back. Maybe he's nervous too -- they're suddenly shy around each other, shyer than they were when they were divorced, and they circle each other warily, quiet.

Is she going to move right back into their apartment, pretend nothing happened? Are they going to date for awhile and then have a real wedding, or just go down to the courthouse at one lunch hour next week and quietly get things repaired? She has no idea what she wants, so she keeps grabbing a fistful of Ryan's shirt and kissing him before any of it can come up, hoping she can figure it out before they have to leave Scranton and go... wherever they go.

Ryan took Monday and Tuesday off work to help with calling things off, but they're each still staying at their respective parents' houses, and Monday night, Pam can't sleep. She tosses and turns and finally gets up, putting on a hoodie over her pajamas, shoving her feet into flipflops, and sneaking out through the darkened house to her mom's car. It's one in the morning.

Ryan's house is dark except for the window of his childhood bedroom – she knew he wouldn't be asleep. She gets out of the car and cuts across the lawn, the dew cold on her feet, picking up some pebbles as she goes. When she's close enough, she starts pitching them at his window, making little clinks when they hit. Good thing Roy taught her to throw in 10th grade.

When she hits the window for the third time, it goes up and Ryan leans out, sleepy-eyed and messy-haired, wearing that old blink-182 t-shirt of his with the holes in it that she keeps trying to get him to throw away. He's trying not to smile.

"Oh, Romeo, Romeo," he says, and makes a what-the-fuck face at her. "Dude, don't you have a cell phone?"

Pam shrugs at him, smiling.

"I left the back door unlocked for you," he says. "C'mon up."

Of course he knew she was coming, even though she didn't. That's what's so reassuring and so terrifying about this, how easy it is to fall back into, how devastating it's going to be if it goes sour again.

Making out on his little-boy bunkbeds is vaguely hilarious, half on top of each other because there's no space, annoying the dog at the foot. Fletch licks her ankle mournfully and she giggles.

Ryan lifts his head up to look down at her, then down the bed at Fletch. "Poor dog," he says, and starts to sit up, but then bumps his head on the bunk above them. Pam giggles some more. "Fuck," Ryan says, and then he looks at her for a long second, like he might be about to say something serious.

To stop him, Pam crooks her finger into one of the holes in the neckline of his shirt, pulls him in for another kiss. Their pajamas are still mostly in place -- they haven't slept together yet; it's too enormous to jump straight back in. And when they do, Pam's going to have to think about how she slept with Jim in between, and she's doing her best not to think too much about Jim. It hurts, is all. Jim's face, when she called off the wedding.

Ryan kisses her, but then pulls back. "Are you kissing me so we don't have to talk about what we're going to do next?" he says.

Pam feels sheepish. "How did you know?" she says.

Ryan takes a breath in -- not quite a sigh, but close to one. "Because I'm doing it too," he says. He looks at her again for a long moment, studying her face, and for once she can't tell what he's thinking.

Finally he says, "I have to show you something," and untangles himself from her, walks across the room to his desk. She straightens up so she's sitting on the edge of the bunk, pulling her shirt back down from where it had ridden up above her stomach. "I know things can't stay the way they were," Ryan says, pushing some keys on his laptop. He glances back over his shoulder at her. "This time, it'll be different, I promise."

"Ryan," Pam starts.

"Wait a sec," he stops her, and then picks up his laptop and brings it over to her, setting it on her lap so she can see the screen. "I promise," he says, and kind of takes a step back, waiting for her to read whatever it is.

Onscreen is an email, and she starts to read. "Mr. Howard, We're delighted to offer you a position here in Philadelphia," it begins.

She looks back up at him and shakes her head a little, confused.

"I got headhunted," Ryan says. He's standing there looking earnest in his holey t-shirt and blue-striped pajama pants, the Green Day poster behind him just making him look that much more fifteen years old. "And I think maybe New York is bad for me. And this way, we'd be closer to our families, and the job isn't that fast track bullshit. We could -- um, I don't know. Kids or whatever, even."

"Oh, Ryan," she says. She doesn't know what to think, torn between the sweetness of him offering, and the strangeness of it, and how frightening it is to love someone this much. "But you love New York."

Ryan shrugs. "I love you," he says.

Pam sort of wants to cry. She blinks and looks back at the email. "Ryan," she says. "Things do have to change but... I don't know. I don't think we have to move to Philly."

Ryan's forehead knits together. "I thought New York was too lonely."

"Without you," Pam says. "Not in general. I mean, I have friends."

Ryan comes and sits down beside her, his narrow shoulders, the convex curve of his spine. She knows his body so well, better than her own, and she finds herself focusing on the bones of his wrist, on the pale blue veins underneath the skin.

"Oh," Ryan says. His shoulders are kind of slumped, though she can't tell if it's in relief or what. "So you just want to move back into our old apartment, then?"

Pam thinks about that apartment and how angry she was the whole last year she lived there, how dark and empty it always felt. "Maybe we should get a new place," she says. "Fresh start." She reaches over and puts her hand in his, resting on his knee. He's still wearing his wedding ring, metal warm against her fingers. She has to get hers back -- she told her mom to put it somewhere, after the divorce, when she didn't want to see it anymore. She gave Jim back his engagement ring on Friday night, and her left hand feels strangely bare. God, Jim. She can't think about it, it's too awful.

Ryan turns and looks at her, that frightening fragile delighted look on his face he's had ever since she told him her wedding was off, rising hope and desperate happiness, how easily she could break him. "Fresh start," he says.

An unearthly howling starts from the end of Ryan's bed, and they both jump, turning to look at the dog, who is deep in his dreams. Pam's heart's staccato, startled at the noise. "Holy..." she says.

Ryan starts laughing.

"So he's still doing that," Pam says. "Remember that time at the lake house, before we got married, when he was sleeping in the room with me and your sister and he did that?"

"Yeah, didn't you start an exorcism?" Ryan says.

"That is not a mortal noise," Pam says. Fletch lets out another howl. His eyes are tight closed, and his brown furry side is moving up and down with his breathing.

"I always wonder what he's dreaming about," Ryan says. They both watch him, and as he howls one more time, Fletch himself suddenly starts, apparently waking himself up with his own noises. He looks surprised. Pam laughs.

"All right, that's enough," Ryan says, grabbing Fletch by the collar and pulling him off the bed. A little dazed and sleepy, the dog follows him out the door into the hallway. Ryan shuts the door behind him, but not before Pam sees that Fletch is just curling up right outside. "Dumb dog," Ryan says, turning back around and leaning against the door.

It's funny, it's not like having the dog in the room had felt like another person, but now that he's outside, Pam's really conscious of her and Ryan being alone, just the two of them. Ryan's eyes are really alive, looking at her.

She's just -- she missed him. A lot. For a long time, since way before the divorce.

She smiles a little bit, not looking away from him. "I missed you," she says, and then he's taking two steps forward to close the space between them, his hand on the back of her skull to kiss her.

"Pam," he says, and they roll back onto the bed, his familiar weight on top of her, his hands slipping just under the waistband of her pajama pants, the span of them so normal on her hips. "Pamela," he says, kissing her neck.

He touches her gently, like she might shatter, and she does her best not to think about Jim's hands touching her this way, not long ago. How much taller Jim was, how he had to contort to kiss her while they slept together, how new it had felt, good but unsettling, how unlike Ryan he had been.

Ryan pulls back to look at her, leaning on his left side. "What's wrong?" he says.

Nothing. Everything. She shrugs at him. "I'm just -- I'm sorry. About everything."

Ryan's face shifts a little bit, the way he smiles without really smiling, the way the planes of his face change around his eyes a little, around the corners of his mouth. "Not as sorry as me," he says.

"Wanna bet?" she says.

"A brazillion dollars," he says.

She laughs and kisses him, and the rhythms of make-up sex are familiar after that, when they roll and when they kiss, and she's never known anybody as well as she knows Ryan, where his freckles are and how he smells and the hollow of his shoulderbone where he's sensitive. The swear words he says when he accidentally slams his elbow into the wall right in the middle of doing it, not used to sex in a twin bed.

"Motherfuck!" he says, clutching at his funnybone.

Pam tries not to laugh, but she can't help it.

"Shut up," he says, twisting to try to get in a better position. Pam squirms underneath him, still giggling. "Goddamn bunk beds. It's like trying to have sex at camp."

"Sexy," she says, shifting her hips a little against the ache inside her, trying to get him to start moving again.

He smiles down at her, still rubbing his arm. "You seem strangely antsy," he says. He rocks, just a little, and she makes a noise in her throat. "Pam," he says, and kisses her.

After they finish, Pam's curled up against Ryan's shoulder, under his baseball sheets, sweat sticking their bodies together. Ryan's got a lock of hair stuck down against his forehead, and the bed's too small, but she doesn't want to move. He turned off the lamp, and she can just see him in the moonlight from the window, his eyes half-closed, almost asleep. It's late.

"I never stopped loving you," she says, quiet. "Even when I thought I had, I hadn't, really."

She's not sure if he heard her, but he shifts, moving her head more into the crook of his shoulder, so they fit together like puzzle pieces.

He takes a long contented breath, and her body lifts with it, his chest rising. "I hoped," he says, quiet back. Two minutes later, he's asleep.

**  
END


End file.
